XIX
How Leyland Spent the Evening
Bredon was not allowed to escape so easily. Leyland insisted that their plans must be settled at once, before supper time. “You see,” he said, “we’ve got to make rings round Brinkman, and he’s got to fancy that he is not under observation. That’s going to be a difficult job. But it’s made easy for us, rather, by the fact that Friday night is cinema night in Chilthorpe.”
“A cinema at Chilthorpe!” protested Mr. Pulteney. “Good God!”
“Yes, there’s a sort of barn out behind the rectory, and one of these travelling shows comes round once a week or once a fortnight. It’s extraordinary how civilization has developed, isn’t it? My idea was this: our friend the barmaid is to come in at supper, and ask us if we shall be wanting anything for the night, and whether she can go out. The Boots, she will say quite truthfully, is going to the cinema, and she wants to do the same. Mrs. Davis will be kept busy at the bar. Therefore there will be nobody to attend to the bell if we ring—she will ask us whether we mind that.”
“Machiavellian!” said Mr. Pulteney.
“Then somebody—you, Mrs. Bredon, for choice—will suggest our making up a party for the cinema. Your husband will refuse, because he wants to stay at home playing patience.”
“Come, I like this scheme,” said Bredon. “It seems to me to be all on the right lines. I only hope that you will allow me to be as good as my word.”
“That’s all right; I’m coming to that. The rest of us will consent to accompany Mrs. Bredon; Brinkman, presumably, will refuse. Soon after supper—the performance is at eight—we will all leave the house in the direction of the cinema, which is fortunately the opposite direction from the garage.”
“And have I got to sit through an evening performance in the barn?” asked Angela.
“Why, no; I want you and Mr. Eames to make your way back to the inn, by turning off along the lane which leads to the old mill; then you can come in quietly by the privet-hedge at the back. Then I want you, Mr. Eames, to wait about in the passage which leads to the bar, dodging down the cellar stairs if Brinkman comes to the bar to have a fortifier on his way. I hope your reputation will not suffer from these movements. You will keep your eye on the front of the house, in case Brinkman goes out that way.”
“He’s a fool if he does,” said Bredon. “In the first place, it’s a shorter way to the garage to take the path that goes out at the back. And in the second place, if he takes that path he will be unnoticed, whereas if he comes out by the front door he will be under the eyes of the bar parlour.”
“I know, and I am going to discourage him still further from going out at the front by leaving you to keep a lookout. Your window faces the front, doesn’t it? Very well, then, you will sit in your room playing patience, but right in the window-seat, please, and with the blind up.”
“But I say, if he goes out by the front way, have I got to track him? Because—”
“No, you haven’t. Mr. Eames is to do that. You sit still where you are and go on playing patience. Mr. Eames, if Brinkman goes out by the front door, you will see him; you will wait till he is round the corner, and then follow him at a distance. That, of course, is only to make sure what he does on the way to the garage; you are not to overtake him or interfere with him.”
“I see.”
“And what am I to do?” asked Angela.
“Well, I was wondering if, on returning from our false start, you would mind going up unnoticed to your husband’s room? The back stairs are very handy for the purpose. You could sit there reading, or anything, and then if Brinkman does leave by the front, your husband, while still sitting at the window and pretending not to notice, could pass the word to you. You would then go downstairs and ring up the garage, so that we shall be ready for Brinkman when he comes.”
“That will be a thoroughly typical scene. And are you taking poor Mr. Pulteney to the post of honour and of danger?”
“If Mr. Pulteney does not object. He knows his way about the garage.”
“I shall be delighted to go where glory waits. If I fall, I hope that you will put up a plain but tasteful monument over me, indicating that I died doing somebody else’s duty.”
“And what about your two men?” asked Bredon.
“One of them will be told off to watch Simmonds. As I told you, I can’t afford to leave Simmonds out of account. The other will wait out at the back, in a place I have selected; if (or rather when) Brinkman comes out at the back door to make his way to the garage, my man will follow him at a distance, and will take his post at the garage door, in case there’s any rough work there. That, I think, accounts for the whole party.”
“How long does our vigil last?” asked Eames.
“Not, I imagine beyond nine o’clock. That is the hour at which the garage shuts; and, although there is a bell by which the proprietor can be fetched out if necessary, I hardly think that Brinkman would take the risk. The dusk is closing early this evening, with all these clouds about; and if, as I strongly suspect, there is a thunderstorm, it will be a capital night for his purpose. It’s a nuisance for us, because I haven’t dared to leave any of my watching-parties out of doors for fear of a deluge.”
If tea had been an embarrassing meal, supper was a positive nightmare. But when the barmaid, carefully coached by Angela, asked for leave to go out to the pictures, a perfect piece of acting began. Angela’s suggestion to her husband was beautifully done, so was his languid reply; Mr. Pulteney excelled himself in the eagerness with which he offered to be her cavalier; Leyland’s show of reluctance over the programme, and Eames’s humorous resignation to his fate, completed the picture. Brinkman, after one nerve-racking pause, said he thought on the whole he would rather be excused. He found the cinema tiring to the eyes. “Good,” said Bredon; “then you and I will keep the home-fires burning. It’s true I shall be sitting upstairs, because I’ve got my patience all laid out up there, and I haven’t the heart to desert it. But if you’re frightened of thunder, Mr. Brinkman, you can always come up and have a crack with me.”
The alleged cinema party left at five minutes to eight. By that time Bredon was already immersed in his mysteries upstairs; and it was Brinkman, smilingly apologetic, who saw them off at the front door. “Don’t sit up for us if we’re late, Mr. Brinkman,” said Angela, with the woman’s instinct of overdoing an acted part; “we’ll throw brickbats in at my husband’s window.” The inn door, with its ridiculous panes of blue and yellow, shut behind them, and they heard the unsuspecting footsteps of their victim climbing the stairs. As they passed down the street, a few drops of rain were falling, uneasy presages of the storm. Angela quickened her pace; she had not carried realism to the extent of arming herself with an umbrella. It was, in truth, but a short distance she and Eames had to travel; they were only just out of sight round a bend of the street when they doubled back upon the lane by which they were to return to the inn. At the entrance of it they met Emmeline, with the Boots in attendance; it was difficult not to believe that, upon arrival at the cinema, he would be replaced by a more favoured escort. Leyland and Pulteney just stood long enough at the turning to make sure that all had gone well, and then continued their journey to the garage.
Here all was clearly in readiness; the proprietor was waiting for them at the door to receive his orders.
“Look here,” said Leyland, “this gentleman and I are going to watch for a bit in here. Where’s the telephone? Ah, that’s all right; very well, we’ll get behind this lorry. If anybody comes into the garage and wants you, he can ring that bell, can’t he? And if anybody rings up on the telephone, we’ll take the message; and if it’s for you, not for us, we’ll let you know. Meanwhile, I suppose you and your mate can keep in the background?”
“That’s all right, sir, there won’t be any difficulty about that. About how long might you be requiring the use of the garage for, sir?”
“Till nine o’clock—that’s your closing time, isn’t it? Any objections?”
“There ain’t no difficulty, sir, except that I’ve got to take my car out: I’ve got to meet a gentleman who’s coming down on the 8:40 train. But if I take it straight out, and don’t waste any time over it, that’ll be all right, won’t it? She’s all ready for starting.”
“Very well. Twenty minutes to nine—or I suppose you’ll want it about twenty-five to. Well, you may see us when you come back, or you may not. There’s nothing else, then.”
As the proprietor withdrew behind the door which led into the workshop at the back, Leyland and Pulteney took up their stand behind a hay-wagon which afforded them generous concealment. Even as they did so, a sudden wink of lightning illuminated the outlines of the garage and the road outside; it was followed by a distant sound of thunder. The wind had got up by now, and was moaning uneasily among the rafters of the building, which was no better than an open barn.
“Our performance could hardly have been better staged,” murmured the old gentleman. “I only regret the absence of a revolver. Not that I should have any idea how to use a lethal weapon, but it would give me more sense of derring do. It is singularly unfortunate that, even if I narrate the events of this evening to my pupils next term, they will not believe me. They suspect any information which comes from such a source. To you, I suppose, this is an everyday affair?”
“Don’t you believe it, Mr. Pulteney. Most of a detective’s life is spent sitting in an office filling up forms, like any bank clerk. I’ve got a revolver with me myself, but I’m not expecting any shooting. Brinkman doesn’t strike me as being that kind of customer.”
“Is it intended that I should precipitate myself upon the miscreant and overpower him, or where exactly do my services come in?”
Leyland was rather at a loss to answer. The truth was, he did not quite trust Mr. Pulteney, and he thought it best for that reason to keep him by his side. “Well,” he said, “two heads are better than one if it comes to a sudden alteration of plans. But there isn’t going to be any difficulty about catching our friend. If he comes out by the back, he’ll have my man shadowing him. If he should come out by the front, he will have Mr. Eames shadowing him. So he will be caught between two fires.”
“But it might be difficult for Mr. Eames to catch him if he were already in the motorcar and driving it.”
“Don’t you worry about that, Mr. Pulteney. I’ve fixed that car so that nobody’s going to get her to move unless I want him to. It’s the devil of a night, this. I hope Brinkman won’t funk it.”
They seemed, indeed, to be in the very centre of a thunderstorm, though it was nowhere quite close at hand. Every few seconds, from some unexpected quarter, the whole sky seemed to wink twice in rapid succession, and with the wink the roofs of Chilthorpe would suddenly stand out silhouetted, and a pale glare fell on the white road outside. Rain lashed upon the roof above them, and for a few minutes every gutter spouted and every seam in the tiles let in a pattering flood; then, without a word of warning, the rain would die down once more. Occasionally the lightning would manifest itself closer, great jagged streaks across the sky that looked as if they were burying themselves in the hill summits above the town. When the elements were at rest for a moment, there was an uncanny stillness on every side; not a dog barked, not a footstep clattered down the deserted street.
Attuned as their nerves were to the thunder, they both started as if in panic when the telephone bell rang. Leyland was at the instrument in a moment, and heard Angela’s cool voice asking for him at the other end.
“Is that you, Mr. Leyland? Brinkman has just left the hotel by the front door. … Yes, the front door. I didn’t see him myself, of course, but my husband said he came out quite coolly, just looking up at our window as if to see whether he was watched. Then I came straight to the telephone. I just looked in at the bar passage, and found that Mr. Eames was not there, so I suppose he has followed. Shall I give any message to the man at the back? Oh, all right. … Yes, he was carrying a despatch-box, which looks as if he would round up with you before long. … All right, we’ll expect you when we see you.”
“That sounds all right,” said Leyland to his companion. “We’d best take cover. Though why on earth the man came out by the front door—Gad, he must be a cool customer! To walk out with his bag from the front door, and wander in here asking for his car! Keep well behind the lorry, Mr. Pulteney. … Hullo, what’s that?”
The door of the workshop opened, and the proprietor appeared, drawing on a pair of motoring-gloves. “Sorry, sir, it’s twenty-five to; got to go and pick up my gent. Bad night for a drive, with the rain on your windscreen, and this lightning blinding you every other second.”
“Hurry up, man, get clear,” said Leyland impatiently. “He’ll be here in a moment. As you come back, you might stop at the Load of Mischief, because we may want a car.”
There was a drumming and a grinding, and the taxi bounded out on to the roadway. Leyland and Pulteney drew back behind the lorry, and waited for the sound of a footfall. They heard the hoot of the taxi as it passed the turning at the bridge; they heard the scrape as it changed gears a little late on the hill road; then the noise died down, and there was silence. Two flashes of lightning, with the thunder following quick on them; then silence again. Five minutes passed, ten minutes, and still they sat on in the half-darkness. Leyland’s mind was in a whirl of agitation. Granted that Brinkman had taken some circuitous route, to avoid observation, was it likely that he should take so long as this? He had had time to carry his luggage all round the township by now. … Suddenly, from up the street, came a sound of running footsteps. Leyland gripped his revolver and waited with drawn breath.